Assure each pioneer immeasurable gratitude. Such vigorous response at such
perilous times to so vital a call opens brilliant epoch in Formative Age
of the Faith of Baha'u'llah. I am impelled to congratulate the Assembly
for its wise, efficient trusteeship.

Cablegram April 1, 1939

MY PLEA, MY SUPREME ENTREATY

I have in two recent, successive messages, cabled to your Assembly, giving
expression, as far as it lay in my power, to the feelings of overpowering
gratitude which the response of so many pioneers to the call of teaching
has evoked in my heart. I have moreover felt impelled to convey my
congratulations to the members of your Assembly who, through their
resource, unity and singlemindedness, have lent so needed and timely an
impetus to the mighty work associated with the second year of the Seven
Year Plan. There can be no doubt whatever that what the American
believers, no less than their elected National representatives, have
accomplished, the long and assiduous care of the former and the potent
methods employed by the latter, have witnessed to the uprising of a new
spirit on which the defamers of the Cause may well pause to reflect, and
from which its lovers cannot but derive deep joy and solace. I again wish
to thank with all my soul those whose acts have stirred the imagination of
friend and foe alike.

In my desire not to omit anything that might help to spur on or reinforce
the community of the American believers as they move on to their destiny,
I feel it necessary to add a word of warning in connection with the work
that has been so splendidly begun lest it should be jeopardized or
frustrated. The initial phase of the teaching work operating under the
Seven Year Plan has at long last been concluded. They who have pushed it
forward have withstood the test gloriously. By their acts, whether as
teachers or administrators, they have written a glorious page in the
struggle for the laying of a continent-wide foundation for the
Administrative Order of their Faith. At this advanced stage in the
fulfilment of the purpose to which they have set their hand there can be
no turning back, no halting, no respite. To launch the bark of the Faith,
to implant its banner, is not enough. Support, ample, organized and
unremitting, should be lent, designed to direct the course of that work
and to lay an unassailable foundation for the fort destined to stand guard
over that banner.

The National Spiritual Assembl